Brake-beam fulcrum with third-point support



P. L. MAHEJR, H. SCHMIDT AND J. H. KENNEDY.

BRAKE BEAM FULCBUM WITH THIRD POINT SUPPORT.

APPLICA HON HLED AUG.2Z, I918- Patented Mar. 22, 1921.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

PETER L. MAI-IE3, HERMAN SCHMIDT, AND JOHN HENRY KENNEDY, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, ASSIGNOR'S TO THE DAMASGUS BRAKE BEAM COMPANY, OF CLEVELAND,

OHIO, A CORPORATION or OHIO.

BRAKE-BEAM FULCRUM WITH THIRD-POINT SUPPORT.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Mar. 22, 1921.

Application filed August 22, 1918. Serial No. 250,914.

To all to 7mm it may cance /"n Be it known that we, Pnrnn L. MAI-Inn, Hnmvmn Sormrrnr, and JOHN HENRY KEN- nnoY, citizen of the United. States, residing at Cleveland, in the county of Guyahoga and State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Brake-Beam Fulcrums with Third-Point Supports, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to brake-beam fulcrums constructed of forged steel. We find fullest realization of its several advantages in a fulcrum that serves as the strut in a trussed brake-beam, and particularly a strut-fulcrum in which the two walls that define the brake-lever slot and carry the fulcrum pin are provided by a pair of spaced structural steel side bars, while the tension member seat or saddle is constructed by forging the ends of these bars in a heading machine between dies that unite the metal of the two bars into an integral block or head bridging the space between the bars and presenting the tension member seat diagonally of the bars or in a line at sufiicient angle to the plane of the lever slot that it will lie across the ends of both bars and cause a load of the tension member to be imposed longitudinally upon the ends of the bars with uniform distribution between them.

Standardized requirements for railway rolling stock equipment now require a third point support for brake-beams, and particularly a form of support involving a chair or shoe depending from the outer end of the fulcrum and resting upon a supporting bar projecting outwardly from the spring plank of the truck.

The object of the present invention is to provide, upon a brake-beam fulcrum of the kind above described, a member suitable for obtaining third point support upon a track located beneath the brake-beam, and particularly support through means of a chair or shoe sliding upon such a track; and to accomplish this through the medium of an extension of one of the side bars lying be yond the forged head. Accordingly, the present invention consists primarily in a forged steel fulcrum, comprising spaced side bars, having the end of one side bar forged into union with an intermediate portion of the other side bar in a manner to not only provide an integral head andtension member seat formed thereon, but an integral extension beyond said seat having its outer portion fashioned or shaped to adapt it for convenient and secure attachment of the supporting means. Secondarily, the invention consists in having this end bifurcated, and its members individually bent or curled, in a vertical plane to provide a pair of eyes affording spaced pintle bearings with their axis parallel to that of the tension member seat, and, therefore, horizontal, from the tension member seat, in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the fulcrum, and in alinen'lent therewith. The extension is preferably in alinement with one wall of the tension member bearing, and when so located will afford a stiffening reinforce for the latter in bridging the space between the bars.

The extension is made of the same rolled bar stock as the blank for the body of the fulcrum, and preferably will remain with substantially the same section in the finished extension member, although gripped between dies in the upsetting operation. It may be made with economy of production and with. structural advantage to the finished product, as well as convenience in the act of forging the integral end upon the body of the fulcrum, by merely gripping that portion which makes the extension between members that form the headerdie of the forging machine in a manner to preserve the shape of the extension, while utilizing the grip upon it to assist in upsetting the intermediate portion of the metal between the extension and the fulcrum bar in the step of uniting said intermediate portion and the adjacent end of the parallel fulcrum bar, to form the integral head. This, par ticular procedure, which is preferably followed in forging the fiilcrum and its integral extension, is not claimed herein, but is reserved for a separate application. The product of such procedure, however, namely the fulcrum. having its two spaced members formed of a pair of rolled section bars and having an end of one bar forged into union with an intermediate portion of the other bar sufficiently back from the end of the latter to leave an integral third point support extension forming a prolongation of one bar with the metal of the extended bar intermediate of the extension and the fulcrum proper, upset and welded into union with the adjacent end of the other bar, to form the integral bridging head longitudiand offset carry the bearings 1 2 nally overlying both bars of the fulcrum member, is believed to be an especially advantageous structure when made, and is therefore specifically claimed as a new article of manufacture.

In the accompanying drawing, which illustrates the best embodiment of the invention now known to us, but which is to be'taken as illustrative rather than definitive of. the scope of the invention, Figures 1, 2- and 3 are respectively a side view of the fulcrum, a plan view of the under side thereof, and an end view as seen from the right of Figs. 1 and 2.

The fulcrum comprises the side wall members 1 and 2 which define the slot to receive the brake-lever (not shown) and for the pin upon which the brake-lever is to be fulcrumed; some form of compression-member bearingend 3 which may vary widely in form according to the section of the compressionmember with which it is to be connected;

the head 4, which is integral with and unites the outerend of wall 2 with an intermediate portion of the wall 1, and which carries the tension member seat 5; and the extension 6 integral with head 4, projecting outwardly from one wall of the seat 5, and having its outer end fashioned into a bearing 7 for a pin or boltthrough which the third point supporting chair is to be attached.

As shown in the drawings, the seat 5 in the-block or head 4 lies diagonally across the ends of the members 1, 2, as hereinbefore stated.

The third point support bearing will preferably be bifurcated, as shown at 7 in Figs. 2 and 3, so that the attaching shank of the chair Or slide shoe may be entered between its members and confined laterally -by the bearing arms, as well as vertically by the pin that connects these parts. The extension will preferably be of the same dimensions as one of the bars 1 or 2, and will preferably constitute an integral prolongation of the same original piece of bar steel that was worked into one wall of the slot as material advantages accrue therefrom. The greater transverse dimension of the extension is in a plane displaced about 40 from that of the bar 1 or 2 of which it forms an integral part, this angular displacement having been de-. veloped at some suitable stage in the production of the fulcrum (though by no means necessarily) by twisting the bars at an intermediate point, as a step preliminary to forging the tension member end. The. development ofthe suspension bearin may take place after forging the .tension member end of the fulcrum by punching the free end of the bar to bifurcate it and then curling the remaining relatively narrow projections to develop the pin or bolt bearings.

By observing Fig. 3. it will be seen that the position of the bridging head 4, the coincidence of the extension 6 with the upper wall of the diagonally located tension member seat, and the curling of the bifurcated end portions downwardly and inwardly, results, in this preferred embodiment, in symmetrically disposing the slot 7 and the pin bearings 7 with relation to the longitudinal axis of the fulcrum and consequent balancing upon the third point support. of that portion of the brake-beam load that it is intended to bear.

\Ve claim:

1. A forged brake beam fulcrum, co1nprising a pair of. structural steel bars spaced apart to leave a lever slot between them and having the end of one bar forged into union with an intermediate portion of the other bar and forming therewith a block bridging the space between the bars and providing a tension member seat; the end portion of said other bar beyond its said intermediate portion retaining the original section of said bar, extending beyond said blOCK and seat: in longitudinal alinement with its bar, and being curled to provide a third point support bearing.

2. A forged brake beam fulcrum, comprising a pair of structural steel bars spaced apart to leave a lever slot between them and having the end of one bar forged into union with an intermediate portion of the other bar and forming therewith a block briding the space between the bars and providing a tension member seat; the end portion of said other bar beyond its said intermediate portion in the original section of said bar being extended beyond said block in alincment with one wall of said seat, and being curled toward the other wall of said seat and forming beyond the seat but in longitudinal alinement therewith, a third point support.

8. A forged brake beam fulcrum. comprising a pair of structural steel bars spa ccd apart to leave a lever slot between them and having the end of one bar forged into union with an intermediate portion of the other bar and forming therewith a block bridging the space between the bars and providing a tension member seat: the end portion of said other bar beyond its said intermediate portion in the original section of said bar being extended beyond said block in alincment with one wall of said seat, and being bifurcated and having its ends curled toward the other wall of said seat and providing a slotted third point support in longitudinal. alinement with said seat.

Signed at Cleveland, State of Ohio, this 12th day of August, A. D., 1918.

PETER L. MAHER. HERMAN SCHMIDT. JOHN HENRY KENNEDY. 

